I just read somewhere that the Pentagon has chosen Burlington, VT as one of the first two deployment sites for the new F-35A. I don't know if this is true or not, so please confirm as necessary.

What is the F-35A's mission and why would Burlington, VT be a natural base for it? I know 'The Green Mountain Boys' now fly F-16s.

Aside from those, and the F-15s based at Westfield (Massachusetts), I don't know if there are any jet fighters to be found anywhere else in New England. Is that true? Maybe Connecticut has A-10s also...not sure.

I'm not from the Burlington area (I live in S. New Hampshire). But a Google Map image shows only a modest amount of space to store airframes...certainly nothing expansive or impressive. It is, after all, a commercial airport on the other side of the runway. I was thinking that you'd want the fastest possible jets up here in New England...able to get in the air and to wherever the 'hot-spot' is...be it an airliner with a mayday or whatever, a stray airliner, etc. I was just trying to fathom the curiosity of BTV being one of the first two airports to have them. And what the supposed 'scoring' is that said BTV is where they should locate the F-35. There are a lot of other places with more concrete if 'storage' was the reason.

It does not make sense to put F-35s in BTV for the VTANG. They do fine with their F-16s. Does the VTANG still have an air defense alert commitment at BGR and the MEANG? Since the F-16 (and MAANG F-15s) have longer legs than the F-35, it makes no sense for it to be a coastal defense interceptor. The MAANG also has the capability to position alert F-15s at PSM with the NHANG, as well as at its former home at FMH.

I know the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey ANG wants them, they have an alert mission at Atlantic City Airport that is right between NYC and DC. In fact it's the closest fighter aircraft to NYC.

Quoting ChrisNH (Thread starter):I don't know if there are any jet fighters to be found anywhere else in New England

What's alarming is that with the closing of Brunswick NAS there are no more active duty airfields in the New England, unless you count Fort Drum. The closest active duty airfields are the airfields at JB MDL in New Jersey.

The term deployment site doesn't mean that the ANG fighter unit in BTV would be equipped with the F-35 but to me means a F-35 unit would deploy a detachment (say 4 fighters) to BTV to stand their alert status there in accordance with the NORAD air tasking order. That's what comes to my mind when you use the term "deployment site."

Quoting kanban (Reply 1):How much ramp space do you have for active aircraft storage? Since they keep grinding out units that will need updating before they are combat ready, you might be the closest.

I suspect you'll see those updates done during depot maintenance. In the meantime, those new birds will go to units that can train with them and begin to explore what the airplane can do, even at this early stage. That's what the Europeans did with Typhoon. The early models were limited in combat capability but the air forces of the nations that bought the airplane flew them to get familiar with what they could do, in anticipation of what it would later be modified to do. Same will likely hold true for the F-35.

Has anyone considered that the F-35A will go to Air National Guard units concurrently with assignment to active duty squadrons?

Quoting ebj1248650 (Reply 8):I suspect you'll see those updates done during depot maintenance. In the meantime, those new birds will go to units that can train with them and begin to explore what the airplane can do, even at this early stage. That's what the Europeans did with Typhoon. The early models were limited in combat capability but the air forces of the nations that bought the airplane flew them to get familiar with what they could do, in anticipation of what it would later be modified to do. Same will likely hold true for the F-35.

Correct. F-35 will be produced and updated through block updates. A odd numbered block update is a software update while even numbered updates will also include hardware updates along with software updates.

There's some sort of "scoring" going on here. So politics is creating the scoring methodology, and then politics is changing it when you don't like the result... however, I'm still not sure what the criteria are. Wasn't easy to google.

Quoting ebj1248650 (Reply 8):I suspect you'll see those updates done during depot maintenance. In the meantime, those new birds will go to units that can train with them and begin to explore what the airplane can do, even at this early stage. That's what the Europeans did with Typhoon. The early models were limited in combat capability but the air forces of the nations that bought the airplane flew them to get familiar with what they could do, in anticipation of what it would later be modified to do. Same will likely hold true for the F-35.

I suspect the Typhoon is not a great model to emulate, given that the UK won't be bothering to update the first tranche Eurofighters and will be retiring them by 2019, due to, you guessed it - excessive cost.

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Quoting SSTeve (Reply 12):There's some sort of "scoring" going on here. So politics is creating the scoring methodology, and then politics is changing it when you don't like the result... however, I'm still not sure what the criteria are. Wasn't easy to google.

It's the Guard, politics is everything. There are three things that determine (four, if you want to include size which really goes towards how big the Guard is, and not necessarily what they get) what assets the National Guard in a particular state get: Politics, Mission and Politics (The PiMP factors): How much clout your delegation has on the Hill, how often the units in your state Guard deploy, and how effectively your governor can beg/demand/grovel. Whether they want to admit it or not, it benefits state governments tremendously to have Guard units that deploy regularly. It means that big Army/Air Force is paying the troops, they'll get new facilities (immediate construction jobs and mid/long term Tech/ADOS/ADSW/AGR jobs) and those soldiers away from home are collecting a paycheck that in many cases they are not collecting when they're back home (Unemployment among for seven reserve component personnel runs just under 10%, take a guess at which one has the highest unemployment rate among them... Army National Guard).

Quoting ChrisNH (Thread starter): Aside from those, and the F-15s based at Westfield (Massachusetts), I don't know if there are any jet fighters to be found anywhere else in New England. Is that true? Maybe Connecticut has A-10s also...not sure.

It's just the F-15s at Barnes ANG Base and at the F-16s at Burlington.

Well, in the reading I've been doing it appears as though this 'decision' will come in November. Also, it seems as though a whole bunch more F-35s would be based at Burlington than the number of F-16s they have there now. If that is correct, then the 'economic impact' should be quite positive. The noise footprint of the F-35 is also mentioned as being 'significantly' higher than the F-16...which is curious since they are both single-engine aircraft.